IC-02 Bogotá

The first volume of New Zealand indie heroes Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s all-instrumentals IC series leaned into the abstract. The Vietnam-recorded collection from 2018 was skronky and dissonant, landing somewhere between pure punkish exuberance and the looseness of free jazz. Seven years later—and following the alluring, luxurious album V from 2023—IC-02 Bogotá signals that even when it comes to UMO’s restless, experimental side, their slippery sound continues to mutate. Yes, there’s plenty of knotty and intriguing improv material to get lost in here; the record, recorded in its namesake’s Colombian city and featuring UMO godhead Ruban Nielson alongside his brother Kody, is bookended by two sidelong jams that tone down IC-01’s noise in favor of spiraling keyboards and hypnotic, elliptical rhythmic patterns. But the chewy center of IC-02 also contains some of the band’s poppiest material in a while, from the psychedelic skips of “Earth 5” to the synths that dot the easy beat of “Heaven 7.”